SPURS GAME DAY! GAME 14: SPURS AT WARRIORS, 14-11-2022, 9PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

Guess that bookie was right LOL

was it that guy who bet $10M on Astros winning it all?!

[G R E Y]

Good man D by Sochan to contest that miss by Kuminga.

[G R E Y]

Sean has been rendered speechless lmao

[G R E Y]

Annnnd we lost the last Q as well. It was just that kind of night.

[Phreak50]

Sochan was the worst player on the court.

We seriously wasted 9th pick on a long shot project.

Ugh.

[G R E Y]

Sochan was the worst player on the court.

We seriously wasted 9th pick on a long shot project.

Ugh.

The 19-year-old rookie 14 games in? Shouldn't we give it a ... year or so at least? This is the development year. He really can guard 1 through 5. We knew the O would take longer to come along. Nobody looked good tonight.

[mzfk69]

Sochan was the worst player on the court.

Well it's not true.
By the way, how is Jalen Duren doing?

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 95 WARRIORS 132

Well oof.

We flat out got our asses kicked. They opened a can of whoopass, and voila.

Nobody had a good game. We couldn't hit a 3 (10-40) to make it competitive and they did what they do, kept it moving, and poured it on from the arc making 23-45. That's 39 more points. And that's game.

But we couldn't hit much from anywhere else. We made just over 40% of our non-3 shots and only 13-19FTs. No one made more than 5 FGs (Sochan 5-13, Diop 5-12, Keldon 5-15); Jakob (3-6) didn't get enough chances and Devin (3-11) struggled from the field in general and from the 3 (0-4) in particular. No one on the bench made more than 3 FGs. No starter made more than three 3s, led by Keldon's 3-9. No bench player made more than two 3s, led by Doug's 2-5. I don't recall such total team inefficient misery.

We couldn't stop them from getting their shots, and that's without certain players not even bothering to contest (looking at you, JRich). We allowed over 50% from the field, over 50% from 3. We allowed 132 points on 13 fewer FGAs.

I didn't like how we didn't move the ball well enough. Part of it was a function of missing a true PG. No starter, no backup. Part of it was JRich, who has split PG/SG at 57%/43%, going rogue in ISO ball, completely taking us out of movement-oriented O we've been cultivating. It's not all his fault, of course, but his choice to go ISO mode as the other players stopped moving and watched was a regression to how we used to play and what we specifically turned away from. A regression to be sure, but certainly fixable as it's an anomaly.

One way to fix it is with film and a frank reminder of JRich's role, both on O and on D, where he gave up layups uncontested and sagged off the dribbler giving more space and once again uncontested Js.

But again it's not all on him, just that if we're going to make mistakes, it ought to be from learning how to play the right way rather than reverting from it. Still, Keldon who took the most shots was rendered ineffective if not almost invisible. He made only 1-4 deep inside the paint. Normally bully ball works, or the 3 works - he excells at both. One area he can improve in is the midrange. He only took two shots from the middy, hitting 1-2. It's not the sexiest shot, not something he has to rely on, but an extra shot creation ability in the toolkit. He actually makes 52.5% of the 3-10ft range shots, and takes them 19.2% of the time. The 10-16ft range he takes only 11.5% of the time and makes them least efficiently, 25%.

He and Devin play off one another well here, though, in that Devin excells at the 10-16ft range, making these shots at 55.6%, taking them 18.1% of the time. But he needs to improve his 3-10ft range which he only takes 11.4% of the time and makes only 23.5% of them.

Although both have improved their games and on expanded roles, they need the facilitating that Tre's improved game provides. It's early days in our growth and each game shows what we do well or what we need to improve. For Keldon and Devin, that includes shot selection expansion, as well as the ability to create their own shots from their dribble as well.

Defensively, we got overwhelmed team-wide by their movement, as they kept getting behind out D be it from fast break leak outs (19-4 fast break points against) or lots of cuts from weak side or back door (44-38 points in the paint against). We just couldn't keep from getting twisted up and confused by their constant motion. Leaving too much space for their 3s didn't help. Their making contested 3s was a final dagger.

We actually did try Sochan at PG. And though it was a surprise to the rest of us, it wasn't to the team:

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It didn't last many possessions, and to break out a brand new starting lineup and with the PF as PG to boot versus a well oiled machine of an opponent was quite the bold move. It failed short term, but long term the more versatility we can squeeze from a player who already guards 1 through 5 only fourteen games into his pro career, the better it is for everyone.

Sochan's form and mechanics on his 3s are weird. His elbow is out and he has this slight hitch in his release. Needs a lot of work. So did Tre's only last season and he's far better now. So did Keldon in his first season when he shot only around 25% from the arc and it's much improved now. We are expecting and asking a whole lot from a 19-year-old rookie who is thrust into a starting role mostly for defensive versatility purposes but who needs to improve his O on the fly. But it's the purpose of this season to develop and instill the fundamentals with which to go forward.

At PF, it was nice to see Roby get some minutes. He's a good pick up for us with his terrific 3s percentage even if he struggled (1-4 from 3, 3-9 overall) like everyone else tonight. Sometimes I feel like tries to do too much with the ball, like JRich, but then I think well we do want to see players expand their games. I forget sometimes he's only 24.

Diop did well after not getting a lot of minutes. He chipped in 12 on 5-12, 2-4 from 3, grabbed 9 boards, and had 2 assists and 2 steals. For a waived pick up, he's been solid for us.

The lack of ball movement showed in our low 18 assists (of course, we had to make some shots in order for assists to be registered, so there's that), and the lack of facilitating in the starting group showed in their combining for only 5 of them. Diop led the starters with 2 assists. Several bench players had 3, the highest amount.

Nineteen TOs cost us another 27 points, a 12-point deficit in this category. Playing with new lineups versus an experienced, fast team that forces mistakes is another lesson of where we are and where we want to be. We are playing through our mistakes, though games like these magnify the errors and their cost.

Our super tall starting lineup helped with the boards. Diop (9) and Bassey (7) led us with 6 O boards each; Jakob led us with 10 boards (4 on O), Sochan grabbed 7 (2 on O) on our way to 52-40 overall and 22-5 on O boards. On the one hand, we did a much better job crashing the boards, even if opponent efficiency didn't offer many rebounding chances; on the other, we didn't take advantage of all those second chance scoring opportunities. Twenty-two is a heaping pile of extra chances, a hypothetical 44 points, even if of course it doesn't quite work that way in real time play. We did better in getting them, and the next step is making more of these opportunities.

We got outplayed by a more cohesive, experienced team who did what they do better than what we do best and forced us out of best while we couldn't do the same. Big learning experience. Let's hope the compete level, defensive pride and intensity, and finding ways to fight through improves the next game.

[G R E Y]

POST-GAME INTERVIEWS

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